Five months after the steering committee report highlighted the need for a revamped residential system, the College is in the beginning stages of drafting housing plans for the upcoming decade, considering changes such as eliminating the River cluster and enhancing the quality of existing dormitories.
Administrative committees will meet for the first time this summer to consider the implementation process of the Student Life Initiative and to decide how to use the more than $100 million earmarked for the improvement of residential and social experiences.
While the College has already decided to add 500 beds within the next three years -- and possibly 600 more within 10 years -- it is still considering such matters as the programming changes that will accompany the construction, where the new facilities will be built, and how best to relieve the current campus-wide housing crunch.
Dean of Residential Life Martin Redman said an eventual elimination of the River cluster is likely, as the Thayer and Tuck schools have made requests for that land. In addition, he said, the College is considering drastically renovating or rebuilding the Choates.
Among the other significant and immediate changes that will come from the Initiative is a move toward a freshman-only housing system beginning with the Class of 2004. Next year, approximately 10 percent of freshmen will live in single-class housing, and that percentage is expected to increase to 50 for the Class of 2005.
And if the campus debate about the continuation of the D-plan leads to an elimination of the Summer term, the College will have to build 300 beds beyond currently plans.
What all this means, according to Redman, is a move toward a more desirable, "neighborhood" residential system.
"At the moment, pretty much anything is fair game," he said.
Spaces where new residence halls might be built include the parking lot behind Massachusetts Row, the location of the old hospital, and an addition to Wheeler Hall, as well as other additions to existing dormitories, and small plots of vacated land.
Director of Real Estate Paul Olsen said any new facilities will likely be built on existing campus grounds.
"I think everyone would agree that it doesn't make sense to build housing for undergraduates farther away from campus," he said.
But what will also play an important role in the revamped residential system is the Initiative's emphasis on residential communities.
Among other things, more dinners, movies and speeeches could be hosted in residence halls, and the Office of Residential Life is already giving its Undergraduate Advisors more incentives to coordinate programming, including a $900 stipend each term beginning next year.
The goal is to "enhance the ways we build or create community on this campus, or at least work to makes students academic lives and their social lives a bit more permeable," Dean of Student Life Holly Sateia said.
"The way I look at residential life is that it's more than rooms down the hall," she continued. "It's community and connection."
